Knight was arrested last week in Las Vegas after he was pulled over for a traffic violation and the officer discovered he was driving on a suspended license warrant.

He spent several days in the Los Angeles County jail — along with several days in a Las Vegas hospital where he was treated for a blood clot — before posting bail and returning to California.

After pleading not guilty in a courtroom of the Los Angeles County Superior Court's Airport Courthouse, Knight was released in lieu of $500,000 bail.

Knight has prior felony convictions for armed robbery and assault with a gun. He pleaded no contest in 1995 and was sentenced to five years' probation for assaulting two rap entertainers at a Hollywood recording studio in 1992.

He was sentenced in February 1997 to prison for violating terms of that probation by taking part in a fight at a Las Vegas hotel hours before rap star Tupac Shakur was fatally wounded in a drive-by attack as he rode in Knight's car just east of the Las Vegas Strip. Shakur's slaying remains unsolved.